October 1, 2006

9:30—Woken up before 8:00 this morning by a marching band outside my hotel. Tried to ignore it figuring it was some church thing that would stop after 20 minutes or so (it’s Sunday, after all), but after the first hour and a half of non-stop drums, frequently accompanied by xylophones, trumpets and whistle blasts, I was left with little choice but to go see what was going on. Surprise, it’s a parade. Of children. Judging by how long it’s been going on, probably every child who lives on the lake is in the damn thing. There are marching bands and gymnasts and cheerleaders with homemade pom-poms and little girls with umbrella-parasols, boys with cardboard-box ponies strapped to their shoulders with neckties, balloon-festooned trucks blasting out Shakira, and so on.

I haven’t asked yet what the occasion is. I’ve no idea how much longer this will go on. If I’d been a little less wrecked last night when I got here I might be a little more motivated to care. But so far the only way this unending and rather uninteresting parade of children concerns me is that it blocks my exit route to the lake. But mainly I just wish they could make the drumming stop!

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Ooh, now they’re playing a drums-and-xylophone version of “Tequila.” My mom would be digging this.

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10:25—the parade is finally over! Hamdul’illah.